


New Moon

by TheManyFacesofJester



Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: Vengeance, Spartacus: War of the Damned
Genre: I Don't Even Know, M/M, moon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 19:43:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9673238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheManyFacesofJester/pseuds/TheManyFacesofJester
Summary: Nasir knows he's dying. He makes a prayer to the moon. That prayer is answered.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For now this is just a one-shot, but I've never been good at those, so I might use this as a prologue for a longer story! We'll see!

There was no moon in the sky the night he died.

It would have been almost painless for him if not for Agron's expression. He looked more broken then Nasir had ever seen and it almost killed him again as he bled out onto the sand and dirt. He knew Agron was coming, to hold him or help him, but Nasir couldn't hold out that long and he found himself lying flat and looking up. He thought perhaps, if he could find a spot in the sky to focus on, a point in the universe, then he might be able to hang on. But the moon wasn't there and the stars were too dull and he kept looking up and up and up. There was a cry from the field and Nasir knew it was from Agron. He talked about his brother, Duro, less than he should have but he said enough for Nasir to know how much his death had changed him. Cracked him. Damaged him. Searching the sky Nasir told himself, and the stars, and the missing moon that he couldn't die. Not yet. Not before him. He owed him that much.

There was a moment when the sky grew darker and the world went black, and Nasir was sure he was dead but just as it got too dark to feel he saw the moon. Full and bright and close. A ghostly hand moved to touch it and it took a moment for Nasir to recognize that it was his. His hand. His body. His eyes watching his feet land gently on the cratered surface beneath him. He should have been confused. He wasn't. He touched the dust beneath him with his fragile hand and felt a connection. He was the moon. Inexplicably, but undeniably, he and the moon were joined together in every way. He concentrated, and it moved. He felt at peace and it shone all the brighter. He smiled and it moved closer to the earth.

The earth. It looked far and small, but insurmountable. Agron was there. He had to get back to him. The Gods, wherever they were, had listened, had understood, had granted him a second life to spend and he would have it spent with Agron. Could the moon visit the earth? Not now, he knew. Not while it was absent from the sky. He would have to wait until he began to wax, and hope his light would reach Agron.

It took three days for his crescent light to reach the rebel camp. His light had let him see many things as it drifted over far off places. He saw rites performed, prayers said, curses sworn, love made, death bestowed, and life given. He could see the whole of his domain in a single blink. Nasir never thought about how many people were in the world, how much they did, how small he was in the universe, and how very important every life was. One life in particular was owed his special attention however and finally his light allowed him to spy Agron. He was looking to the sky. Nasir looked back at him. He could see the moon, so perhaps he could see him too, if he moved closer. His feet lifted off the lunar dust and Nasir left his post to sink down to the earth. He moved quick and sure to the spot where Agron sat far away from all others.

"Agron?" Nasir said as he floated down from the light of the moon to the sand in front of the man he loved. The ground felt wrong somehow, not bad, just alien. Like he had never set foot on it before.

"You are a dream," the man replied, glistening eyes glancing over Nasir's luminescent figure.

"We cannot both be having the same dream," Nasir replied, kneeling down in the now unfamiliar dirt. Agron seemed confused by this. Perhaps he had dreamed of Nasir in the past three days, but maybe his hair was never quite right, or he could not speak, or some other miscellaneous part of him was off in some way that told him he wasn't real. Nothing like that was present now, but he didn't give way to fantasy.

"You are long dead," Agron decided upon saying. Nasir nodded his head. "We burned your body with highest praise and honors. I was there."

"I am sorry to have missed it," Nasir said, in a rather stupid way but he was genuinely sorry he had missed his own funeral. "I could not visit you until just now. I waited three long days to see you again."

That statement also bothered Agron. He looked uncomfortable. People often do when they start to hope.

"What are you?" he asked.

"The moon," Nasir replied.

"You are not Nasir then."

"I am both. I died on the field of battle and asked anyone who was listening to keep me by your side. Someone, somewhere, listened and joined my spirit to the moon."

Agron listened and listened and listened, long after Nasir had stopped talking and Nasir was expecting some kind of answer but was greeted instead by a rough, tan-coloured hand reaching down to his face. Cracked fingers brushed Nasir's hair away from his face, scratching slightly the smooth cold skin on his cheek, still he did not pull away. He knew those hands. He remembered this sensation.

"I want to believe you are real," Agron said in a voice softer than Nasir had ever heard him use.

"Then believe, who will stop you?"

"Reason. Sense. Rationality."

"Those can be convinced with time," Nasir said, stretching up to let his nose press gently against Agron's own. "For now, real or not, you might as well enjoy it."

Agron closed the gap between them and neither was quite sure who's tears were who's, but it didn't seem to matter. Everything felt warm and welcoming again. The sand beneath his feet. The wind against his skin. The man on his lips.

A moment passed and Agron pulled himself away, just slightly, so his lips still brushed Nasir's when he spoke.

"I will die if this is a dream."

"Then you will live forever."

Then Agron smiled, and Nasir felt he was in the presence of the sun. He radiated warmth, and love, and a kind of joy that was fragmented with the subtle fear of illusion. That would dissipate someday, but not now. It was too soon, too much, too perfect to be real just yet.

Moment after moment passed and before long Agron grew inquisitive and started asking questions. How does a person become the moon? How long would it last?

“Someone listened to my cry for help,” Nasir said in answer to the first question. “I have no idea how it works, but it feels permanent. I cannot go back to who I was.”

“How long can you stay?” Agron asked, his hand gliding up and down Nasir’s arm.

"I can be here as long as the moon is casting light," Nasir said, his fingers weaving between Agron's as they spoke.

"So you must leave once the sun rises?"

"Yes," he replied, "but I may come back tomorrow night, and every night after until the next new moon."

It was a description. It was a promise. He was coming back.

“You look different, you know,” Agron said. He seemed to be focusing on Nasir for the first time, his eyes taking in every detail. He hadn’t been looking at him before, not really, not any different from how one would look at a ghost or apparition. You looked to see something was there. Now he took to see someone he loved.

“Do I?” Nasir asked, looking down at himself for the first time since he died. He had seen his hands, shining with a vibrant glow, but his clothes were something else altogether. Luminescent robes of blue and white were billowing and floating around him though he was flat on the ground, accompanied in the air by a fragments of a large scarf that covered his neck and upper torso. He felt for the first time that his hair was doing much the same; it danced around his face gently, like there was a soft breeze only he could feel. Agron studied him and in the moment, he felt nervous.

“New clothes, floating hair, glowing skin, but still me,” he said finally, arching his eyebrow as he gave a smile.

“I said nothing about disliking the way you looked,” Agron replied. “I said ‘different’.”

“You were never a poet with words,” Nasir laughed and Agron laughed with him and crinkled his nose in just the way he always did when he smiled too brightly. Nasir was grateful to be able to see him clearer, to see the contours of his face, but he was not pleased for the reason. The sun was rising.

“Dawn is coming,” Nasir said suddenly, looking out to where a small sliver of light was beginning to creep over the horizon. Agron looked as well.

“You have to leave.”

“I will return.”

“You say that every time I see your shadow.”

“I have said nothing to you on any night but this, and I will come back when the sun’s light is gone again. You have my word.”

“Your heart is a far greater possession to hold,” he replied, and Nasir smiled as his body lifted away.

“I spoke to soon,” he said as he drifted. “You will have me expecting a full song in my honor when I next arrive.”

Agron smiled again, but softer. His nose didn't crinkle in that way Nasir liked. It would always hurt to say good-bye. Not for Nasir, for he knew they were not parting forever, but Agron could not know that. Not quite yet. His death was still raw in his memory. He had seen the body of Nasir removed from this world. He needed time to adjust. Nasir would provide all he needed.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this, I had a good time writing it instead of reading my King Arthur work! Like I said, I might write more, I hope I do because I like this whole idea, I just need a story to go with it! If not, then it's a sweet little oneshot! May we meet again


End file.
